By Connie Davis Bushey
News Editor, Baptist and Reflector
Dewey and Bobbie Dunn of Nashville have a strong commitment to medical missions overseas as well as locally which they still carry out.
NASHVILLE — Friends around the world think of Dewey and Bobbie Dunn and medical missions synonymously.
The Dunns have been on about 100 missions trips, most of them overseas, and most of them led by Dewey, a gastroenterologist who is still practicing medicine full-time at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Nashville though he is 80 years old.
Dunn also is known for recruiting medical professionals with Bobbie’s help to serve on those teams. Two of the teams they led numbered 150 and 175. Over the years the Dunns led missions trips to support many Tennessee Baptist Convention partnerships including Venezuela; the Philippines; Poland; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
This summer the couple was found still doing what they love — medical missions. They were a part of missions teams serving in the Dominican Republic and Paraguay. Bobbie, though 81 years old, conducted eye clinics which involve testing a person’s vision and matching eyeglasses to their need. The Dominican Republic team was organized by their church, Woodmont Baptist Church, Nashville, where they are both leaders.
Also this summer Bobbie and Dewey hosted Cesar Sanchez, a physician they met in the Dominican Republic. Sanchez stayed with the Dunns for a month while he served as a visiting doctor in neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical School/Hospital. Dewey, through his connections at Vanderbilt from his practice and teaching roles there, arranged for the position.
Over the years the Dunns have hosted dozens of medical professionals and other people from other countries who wanted to attend a Nashville English school.
“It gave them an experience in an American home and an American hospital they would never be able to have otherwise,” said Bobbie.
One blessing from this ministry is that they have stayed in contact with many of them, they reported. For instance, this summer in Paraguay they met up with a lady they became acquainted with in Venezuela as they ministered together and who later visited the Dunns.
Helping some of their guests was a challenge, but both Bobbie and Dewey are glad they did as they learn of the accomplishments of their guests, they agreed.
The couple explained that they practice their faith, which in their case became focused on medical missions but is not limited to it, as a way to witness to folks.
“To me being at the hospital now is a spiritual job,” said Dewey.
He and the chaplains at VA Hospital, whom he works closely with, have seen as many as 26 people make professions of faith in a year. They developed a “hospital baptism,” which involves a cup of water and a few towels, explained Dewey. He and Bobbie used the hospital baptism in the Dominican Republic last year to help an elderly man there who was not ambulatory.
A couple of weeks ago at the VA Hospital Dunn was treating a patient. After discussing his health Dunn said, “I’d like to ask you another question. I’d like to ask you about your spiritual life because in the computer it says Judaism.”
Thankfully, the man said that was wrong and he was a Christian. Dunn then asked the man’s son and daughter-in-law who were in the room if they knew Christ.
“With some of the people I’m involved with at the hospital it’s a great thing to be able to demonstrate the tremendous importance of the spiritual side of healthcare,” said Dunn.
Christians wherever they are need to be evangelical, the couple said.
“If we see one person who asks Christ to come into their heart, how many others are there in the hospital grounds, on the premises, patients in the hospital, families of patients in the hospital, who, if they were ever asked that question, would say ‘Yes, I need to make that decision?’ ” asked Dewey.
“We’re just grateful at this stage in our lives that we’re able to have that kind of opportunity,” he explained.
NASHVILLE — Friends around the world think of Dewey and Bobbie Dunn and medical missions synonymously.
The Dunns have been on about 100 missions trips, most of them overseas, and most of them led by Dewey, a gastroenterologist who is still practicing medicine full-time at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Nashville though he is 80 years old.
Dunn also is known for recruiting medical professionals with Bobbie’s help to serve on those teams. Two of the teams they led numbered 150 and 175. Over the years the Dunns led missions trips to support many Tennessee Baptist Convention partnerships including Venezuela; the Philippines; Poland; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
This summer the couple was found still doing what they love — medical missions. They were a part of missions teams serving in the Dominican Republic and Paraguay. Bobbie, though 81 years old, conducted eye clinics which involve testing a person’s vision and matching eyeglasses to their need. The Dominican Republic team was organized by their church, Woodmont Baptist Church, Nashville, where they are both leaders.
Also this summer Bobbie and Dewey hosted Cesar Sanchez, a physician they met in the Dominican Republic. Sanchez stayed with the Dunns for a month while he served as a visiting doctor in neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical School/Hospital. Dewey, through his connections at Vanderbilt from his practice and teaching roles there, arranged for the position.
Over the years the Dunns have hosted dozens of medical professionals and other people from other countries who wanted to attend a Nashville English school.
“It gave them an experience in an American home and an American hospital they would never be able to have otherwise,” said Bobbie.
One blessing from this ministry is that they have stayed in contact with many of them, they reported. For instance, this summer in Paraguay they met up with a lady they became acquainted with in Venezuela as they ministered together and who later visited the Dunns.
Helping some of their guests was a challenge, but both Bobbie and Dewey are glad they did as they learn of the accomplishments of their guests, they agreed.
The couple explained that they practice their faith, which in their case became focused on medical missions but is not limited to it, as a way to witness to folks.
“To me being at the hospital now is a spiritual job,” said Dewey.
He and the chaplains at VA Hospital, whom he works closely with, have seen as many as 26 people make professions of faith in a year. They developed a “hospital baptism,” which involves a cup of water and a few towels, explained Dewey. He and Bobbie used the hospital baptism in the Dominican Republic last year to help an elderly man there who was not ambulatory.
A couple of weeks ago at the VA Hospital Dunn was treating a patient. After discussing his health Dunn said, “I’d like to ask you another question. I’d like to ask you about your spiritual life because in the computer it says Judaism.”
Thankfully, the man said that was wrong and he was a Christian. Dunn then asked the man’s son and daughter-in-law who were in the room if they knew Christ.
“With some of the people I’m involved with at the hospital it’s a great thing to be able to demonstrate the tremendous importance of the spiritual side of healthcare,” said Dunn.
Christians wherever they are need to be evangelical, the couple said.
“If we see one person who asks Christ to come into their heart, how many others are there in the hospital grounds, on the premises, patients in the hospital, families of patients in the hospital, who, if they were ever asked that question, would say ‘Yes, I need to make that decision?’ ” asked Dewey.
“We’re just grateful at this stage in our lives that we’re able to have that kind of opportunity,” he explained.